Even though 2026 is almost two thirds done, I'm still chasing records for 2025 releases that I didn't manage to pick up in the year for various reasons. In my end of 2025 post on here, there were a total of 11 records that I was lacking vinyl copies of. I have managed to pick some of those up this year, although there are still four more to go. But here's the seventh one that I have managed to…
I bought some records from someone a few weeks ago and he was kind enough to throw in this 4 song 12" EP for free. This is a 12" on SST Records by Treacherous Jaywalkers , a band that I had never heard of before called. The band were from Los Angeles and were active from 1984-1992. This is one of three releases that they had on SST - two 12" EPs and one full length. This record is titled 'Sunrise'…
The last few months I have been digging into the Dischord catalogue and exploring some bands I'd never been interested in previously. This year Holy Rollers , Beefeater and Ignition have all clicked with me. So I figured I wanted to try another record that I checked out years ago that didn't grab me - the Rites Of Spring LP. This was one of a few Dischord releases that I heard back when I was…
In late 2024 I picked up a record by Chat Pile. I'd never heard them but was drawn in by the artwork of the record. I still listen to it semi regularly. It's an interesting record, although I haven't got around to checking anything else that they've done, until semi recently when it was announced that they were putting out a 7" on Sub Pop. Given my interest in Sub Pop over the last couple of…
One of my current projects is to own at least one copy of every Dwarves LP. I already picked up a couple of them earlier this year , and have been keeping my eyes open for others. Last week I found a copy of their first LP on eBay UK for cheap, and decided that I probably would never find a cheaper one, so pulled the trigger. This record is titled 'Horror Stories', and this copy is a first press…
There are some bands that I have never been remotely interested in checking out for various reasons. One of them is The Make-Up. Yeah, I know that they are ex Nation Of Ulysees, which is a band that I think is pretty cool, but I always thought the name was lame, and either the photos of the band or artwork on whatever records I saw made me think that they were too 'artsy' and probably not for me.…
Here's another Sub Pop band that I got around to checking out recently. The band is called Big Chief and they were from Ann Arbor, Michigan, active circa 1989-1994. They had a guy named Barry Henssler on vocals, who used to be in a band you may have heard of called Necros. Anyway, I decided to listen to this band online, and cued up their first full length, 'Face'. Two songs in and I knew this was…
It was getting on for three years ago that I picked up my first copy of the Nirvana 'Sliver / Dive' 7", which ended up kickstarting an interest in old Sub Pop releases, and which is a journey that I am still on. It also ended up starting me on a road of trying to collect different versions of this Nirvana 7", even though I figured that this was a path that I should probably avoid. The problem is…
Anyone who has followed this thing for a while knows that Dinosaur Jr are one of my favourite bands. I've had them in my life since about 1990 and never really grown bored of them. After a bit of a break they got back together (back in 2007 I think) and ever since they have carried on cranking out great records. I didn't bother trying to collect multiple copies of their last LP as there were just…
Back in 2023 I started another collection whilst on holiday in Florida. Having never having been interested in buying Metallica records on vinyl, I got sucked into trying to collect the Walmart exclusive pressings of the Metallica albums. I picked up the first five albums , and then also picked up the latest (' 72 Seasons '). Even though I was happy at the time, after I got home and did some…
I remember abuot twenty years ago realising that I didn't want to attempt to collect Bad Brains records. Someone on HYE had a huge long list of Bad Brains records, which made me appreciate how many versions of all the records there were, and it felt like something only a madman would get involved with. So it's kinda funny that here I am in 2026 and I have just bought my third Bad Brains record in…
A couple of years ago I picked up a lot of early Sub Pop 7"s, and it has hugely shaped my listening habits ever since. I have discovered a lot of new bands which are all really old, defunct bands. But it continues to be a fun journey, as I picked up forgotten albums for £10 that clearly nobody really knows or cares about anymore. Which brings me on to my latest find... One of the 7"s I picked up…
Last year I visited RevHQ and, amongst other things, saw a test press for a new release by a band named Birdlegs . It was just a test press so there was no cover art and no information, and despite searching for the band online I found nothing. After a few months I started to question whether I had imagined the whole thing, or misremembered the band name. And then, out of nowhere, the record was…
My recent interest in exploring the SST Records catalog a little further led to someone offering me a compilation LP titled 'Duck & Cover'. I'd not heard of it before, and when I looked it up and realised that it was an album of cover songs, I figured it sounded like a pretty pointless record. But with it being on red vinyl, I kinda wanted it anyway. There are some big names on here - Hüsker Dü,…
The past few years I feel that I have started a few new collections. I never seem to really ever finish any collections, but I never seem to learn. A couple of years ago I picked up some records by Gas Huffer. This was a band that I used to listen to back in about 1992, thanks to learning of them via a split 7" that they did with Mudhoney. After picking up their third and fourth LPs in a shop in…
It's great when my friends turn me onto cool bands. I mean, I can't listen to everything, and so people whose opinion I trust are really helpful in steering me to stuff that I might enjoy. Back in 2023 I picked up the ' Staring At Patterns ' 12" by Method Of Doubt thanks to a glowing review from Mike at the time that I just couldn't ignore. And here we are in 2026, and after seeing both Mike and…
Earlier this year I picked up a Beat Happening LP. I'd never really been interested in the band before but got around to listening to them as a part of my journey into the early Sub Pop catalog. 'Dreamy' was their fourth album from 1991 and it turned out that the turquoise vinyl copy that I picked up was quite rare. I've really enjoyed the LP this year, and not long ago I stumbled across a copy of…
I don't often bother with demos. I guess historically most were on cassettes, which is a format I have never really had any interest in, so any time anyone mentioned a demo my brain just said 'no thanks'. But at some point last year, I checked out a demo from a new band called Colossal Rains . There were only three songs, but I was really into it. So when a 12" went up for order earlier this year,…
Last week (or possible the week before) I was chatting with Nico and he was telling me about some recent Foo Fighters 7"s that he had picked up. He was enjoying the vinyl colours, saying how they looked different to modern records (probably because they weren't pressed at the place that most records are these days). Well, this reminded me that back when Foo Fighters first appeared on the scene, in…
Recently I've been checking out some SST Records releases by bands that I hadn't been interested in previously. So here's another one. Idecided to check out Meat Puppets and immediately found this pink vinyl copy of their 'No Strings Attached' double LP. It was pretty cheap, and I was sold on it when I saw that it still had the shrinwrap on with the original 'color vinyl' sticker attached.…
As mentioned a few times recently, I've been spending time trawling through the discographies of some older or longstanding record labels, trying to find things to listen to that I had never heard (or heard of) previously. At some point recently, I ended up perusing the Nemesis Records discography. Back in the early 90s I picked up a lot of their catalogue, but quickly realised that some of it was…
So I never really wanted to get into collecting Bad Brains records. Until recently, all I had was some 90s repress of the first record (originally a cassette). I remember like twenty or so years ago someone had a Bad Brains collection listed on HYE, and it just went on and on and on. At this point I realised that there were a lot of Bad Brains records, and my overriding thought was 'do not go…
These past few months I have been really interested in going back in time and exploring lesser known bands and releases on some of the bigger and more successful labels. I spent a bit of time going through the SST discography, and recently got interested in Minutemen , Buffalo Tom and Screaming Trees . Those were all bands that I had heard of but never really listened to, so their names stood out.…
Last year (2025) some colour vinyl copies of Black Flag 7"s started popping up. Quite early on I managed to work out that these were not labelled as colour vinyl, and a lot of the sellers didn't realise that they had them. It was a bit chaotic, but thankfully I had some help and advice from a couple of fellow Black Flag collectors, and I ended up with a few different colours of each. Near the…
Back in 2021 I picked up a copy of the newly released Faith Live LP . It was released by Outer Battery Records, and the same label has recently put out a Void Live LP too. And even though I am not a big fan of live records in general, when the email dropped into my inbox at the start of the year announcing this was comnig out, I figured that I couldn't really own the Faith Live LP and not the Void…